Several scientists working at a top-secret Russian nuclear weapons research facility have been arrested by Russian authorities for allegedly mining bitcoins using the facility’s powerful supercomputer. The employees have been detained at the Federal Nuclear Centre in Sarov, western Russia, after making “an attempt to use the work computing facilities for personal ends, including for so-called mining”, a spokesperson for the centre told Interfax News Agency. “Their activities were stopped in time,” the spokesperson added.

The Federal Nuclear Centre is overseen by Rosatom — the Russian nuclear agency. In 2011, the centre launched its new supercomputer with a capacity of 1 petaFLOPS, which can undertake one thousand trillion operations per second. The computer was not intended to be connected to the internet, and when the scientists attempted to do so, the centre’s security department were alerted. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin do not rely on centralized computers servers. This allows people to provide computer processing power to enable transactions to take place. In return, people can be rewarded in bitcoin. During the Cold War, the USSR’s first nuclear bomb was produced at Sarov, during Joseph Stalin’s rule. The city is still a closed area and residents are under travel restrictions, while other Russians who want to visit must acquire a special permit.